# The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich

3 Hacker News commenters recommended The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for its examples of how culturally evolved knowledge and practices help survival, sometimes where pure reason fails.

## Why people recommend it

- Examples where pure reason fails survival (1 comments): "includes many other examples of how pure reason can be counter-productive to survival" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50102358))
- Culturally evolved knowledge across human societies (1 comments): "human cultures have a lot of culturally-evolved knowledge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49678815))
- Recommended to readers who enjoy it (1 comments): "you may enjoy reading "The Secret of Our Success"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46409377))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cuckoo-s-egg.md): 40 recommend
- [Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amusing-ourselves-to-death.md): 36 recommend
- [The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt](https://hackerapproved.com/p/anxious-generation.md): 24 recommend
- [Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bullshit-jobs.md): 20 recommend
- [Enshittification by Cory Doctorow](https://hackerapproved.com/p/enshittification.md): 19 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691166854?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780691166858) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich", https://hackerapproved.com/p/secret-of-our-success/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).